Farede Calendar

General

As with the other calendars, the Farede Calendar, named after its propagator, the Panarch Farede of Tarabon, had an undefined starting point. This calendar dates from the end of the War of the Hundred Years and is still in use.

It sets ten days to a week, twenty-eight days to a month and thirteen months to a year, although there are also some feastdays that are not included in any month. The months in this calendar are:

Taisham

Jumara

Saban

Aine

Adar

Saven

Amadame

Tammaz

Maighdal

Choren

Shaldine

Nesan

Danu

The months' names are mostly used in official documents rather than anywhere else. Some records define the time in days from the last festival or in days remaining to the next.

For information on the feasts and festivals of the Farede Calendar, see the main article.

(Reference: The World of Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time")

Days

The Farede Calendar developed by Robert Jordan for the Wheel of Time is based on the following:

Thirteen months of twentyeight days each => three hundred and sixty four days

A special day (Sunday), not belonging to a month, and occurring every year

Two special days (Feast of Thanksgiving and Feast of All Souls' Salvation), occurring every four years at the spring equinox, respectively every ten years at the autumn equinox

The thirteen months + Sunday amount to the three hundred and sixty five days of the year, the two other days being added to get the full astronomical year. This is the same as our calendar apart from The Feast of All souls salvation, which ads yet another extra day every 10 years. That means they have a slightly different orbital period to us, or over several hundred years, The Feast of Lights (shortest day of the year) would shift from the last day of Danu, by as much as a couple of months

The Farede Calendar is based on the solar year: its first day occurs at the winter solstice, and Sunday is at the summer solstice. Therefore it isn't possible to make a precise equivalence between the first day of the Farede Calendar and, let's say, December 22th, as the winter solstice may occur on any day between December 20th and December 23th...

For simplification, I will assume in this essay that the winter solstice occurs on December 22th, the summer solstice on June 21th (most common occurrences), and that the year counts 365 days. In this case, we obtain the following equivalences:

Normal Calendar Farede Calendar Feast Sun position

3-Jan12-Taisham High Chasaline.

Determined locally: Swovan Night

Determined locally: Festival of Birds

+ 2 days Feast of Embers

+ 2 days Maddin's Day

+ 1 day Feast of the Half Moon

22-Jan3-Jumara Chansein

28-Jan9-Jumara Feast of Abram

Day after first quarter moon of Saban Lamma Sor

Determined locally: Feast of Fools

19-Mar3-Aine (determined locally) Winternight

20-Mar4-Aine (determined locally) Bel Tine spring equinox

From first full moon in Adar to rise of next moon Tirish Adar

22-Apr9-Adar Feast of Neman

4-May21-Adar Feast of Freia

20-May9-Saven Dahan

11-Jun3-Amadaine Asadine

14-Jun6-Amadaine Feast of Maia

17-Jun9-Amadaine Bailene

21-JunSunday Summer solstice

Determined locally: Feast of Sefan

10-Jul3-Tammaz Genshai

25-Jul18-Tammaz Mabriam's Day

13-Aug9-Maighdal Tandar

22-Aug18-Maighdal Low Chasaline

2-Sep1-Choren Festival of Lanterns

22-Sep21-Choren (determined locally) Bel Arvina autumn equinox

5-Oct6-Shaldine Amaetheon

11-Oct12-Shaldine Shaoman

24-Nov28-Nesan Danshu

22-Dec28-Danu Feast of Light winter solstice

23-Dec1-Taisham First Day

I have assumed that Bel Tine and Bel Arvina take place at the equinox, as they celebrate the end of winter and the first day of autumn, but in fact the precise moment is determined locally. And every four or ten years, the equinoxes are used for the celebration of Thanksgiving and All Souls’ Day.

As the astronomical year amount to 365.25 days, there is in fact no use for an All Souls’ Day occurring every ten years ! The 0.25 day is made by the addition of Thanksgiving every four years.